Given the usual response to terrorist threats on airplanes, we expect the latest move to protect us will be to require us to travel nude. OK. Probably not. Republicans are too skittish about public nakedness. They prefer it in the privacy of their mistresses’ beds. What we will see, instead, is yet another attempt at…

When swine flu began there was a hue and cry in some quarters to shut the border to prevent the virus from taking root in the US. It seems fairly clear, now, that by the time we detected the virus, in late April, it had already situated itself in the US — assuming that it…

The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) is one of the most maligned and hated federal agencies. And for good reason. They are worse than useless, performing uncounted acts of “security theater” (in Bruce Schneier’s apt coinage), like confiscating water bottles and making you take off your shoes. The TSA also has an active use of “behavior…

The Global War on Terror is claiming yet another victim: the reputation of Attorney General Michael Mukasey as a principled guardian of the Rule of Law. Even before joining the Bush administration Mukasey was forgetting the meaning of the word “torture,” and since being confirmed is equally benighted regarding privacy. Now he is peddling shoddy…

Homeland security is a priority for the Bush administration. I know that because they keep telling us. We have to take off our shoes and take out our identification getting on and off planes. Not just any identification, either. Official stuff. And crossing borders — any borders, even the border from Canada — now requires…

If you are so paranoid you have trouble sleeping, the Quantum Sleeper is just the thing for you. It’s a bed made to protect you from biological and chemical terrorist attacks, natural disasters (tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes), kidnappers/stalkers and features bulletproof “saferoom” protection (hat tip Boingboing).

Another one of those stories about what is truly, a technological marvel: shrinking a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer down to the size of an iPod, with the target size being that of a matchbox. Designed by MIT engineers, the device which can analyze the air for hazardous gases (and could be adapted for other media like…

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff often seems mystified that the public doesn’t want to be protected as much as he wants to protect them. Maybe a look at the record of the protectors will provide some clue. Protectors like the Transporation Security Administration (TSA), the lovable airport screeners that have done so much to make air…